How I Became Me; How you Become YouThe author posts these weekly spiritual messages (often related to current events) based on his personal experience, the wisdom of AA, the Kabbalah, and A Course in Miracles. Click SUBSCRIBE (at the bottom of this message) to receive these FREE posts.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Ask! Ask! Ask! Why Is That So Difficult For Me?

The other day I got an email
message about friendship and love. I’ve gotten them before. So have you. The
message concluded with instructions similar to this: Forward this on if you are not ashamed of Jesus. Remember what the
Apostle said: if you are ashamed of Him, He will be ashamed of you. If you send
it to 5 people you will receive a little…. If you send it to 10 people you will
receive….. If you send it to more than 15 people, you will be rewarded beyond
belief.

I know these kinds of emails
have embedded “hooks” that get registered by the person who originated this
message. The purpose is to get you to forward these messages on because the
originators are picking off all the email addresses. They already “know” you
are susceptible to this kind of message. This is critical information that can
be sold to email marketers.

The actual scriptural reference
is “If anyone is ashamed of me and my
words, in this wicked and godless age [circa 70AD], the Son of Man will be ashamed of him, when he comes in the glory of
the Father and of the holy angels.” Mark, 8:38 – New English Bible.

Nevertheless, I always feel a
twinge of guilt, fear and doubt as I empty this particular email (and other
similar messages) into the trash.

Oddly (?) enough, the use of
this very verse is discussed by Helen Schucman (pronounced Shoosh-Man) as she
was beginning to channel or transcribe the text of A Course in Miracles.

It is the mid-1960s and Helen is
just beginning to scribe (or take dictation, if you will) the words of the
Course. According to Wapnick, who wrote of her life and her efforts in scribing
the Course, her early notes contained all sorts of asides furnished her after
questions and argumentative comments arose from her mind. Jesus would calmly
answer them. She wrote down her objections and his comments, as well as his
dictation. These personal asides were omitted from the final published text. [Absence
from Felicity – the story of Helen Schucman and her scribing of A Course in
Miracles, Kenneth Wapnick, PhD, Foundation for A Course in Miracles, 1991].

In one of these asides Jesus
clarified this biblical verse from the Gospel according to Mark. “The biblical quotation ‘If you are ashamed
of Me I will be ashamed of you,’ [can be]
interpreted as a threat only as long as you…do NOT recognize that there
is nothing that one would want to hide, even if it were possible to do so….
What [the quotation] really means is
that if you are ashamed of Me (or embarrassed by Love), you will [continue
to] project [your ego’s illusions
onto others] and make it impossible for
Me to reach you.” [ibid., p. 234]

Jesus goes on to say that
cluttering up your mind with all sorts of trivia, accomplishes much the same
thing. I cannot focus on my true function in this physical world, if I am
constantly at the mercy of my monkey-mind, which carries on multiple
conversations in my head all the time and inundates me with all sorts of
critical/urgent/important tasks/decisions/activities that I MUST attend to. Now!

In this kind of situation, Jesus
reminds Helen (and all if us) to ask for His help. He will work with us – even
in very trivial matters – in this illusionary dream state we call “reality,” so
that our minds can remain reasonably focused on working with Him to fulfill our
purpose – forgiving others and ourselves. This is forgiveness, not for biblical
“sins,” but for our errors in believing this world is real, that our
perceptions are based on actual reality, that our angers, resentments, and
fears are truly justified, that we are all separate beings – I am me and you
are not.

I am retired and work on these
messages throughout the week. I couldn’t do this if I were sitting at my desk
in my study worrying about how I was going to come up with the money to fix the
car so I could take my spouse to the hospital. I couldn’t do this if I were
constantly preoccupied with how I’m going to come up with my annual property
taxes, or the rent, or the mortgage, or the grocery bill. I couldn’t do this if
I were constantly glued to the TV watching political pundits rail about
everything under the sun and keeping me angry and frustrated at the political
opposition.

Jesus understands all this and
will help, if I ask. He wants my help
and will give me His to achieve our common purpose in this illusionary world –
true perception and forgiveness.

But I must ask.

Why is this so hard for me to
do? Why do I simply forget to ask?

My ego doesn’t want to
relinquish its control over me. It wants me to continue to believe I am my ego.
It doesn’t want me to know if I truly pursue the reality ACIM says is actually
“real,” then my ego will begin to die. So, it fights me. It fights my attempts
to meditate. It confuses me. It keeps my ego-mind distracted by petty little
thoughts. It attempts to drown out the Voice of the Holy Spirit with meaningless
drivel.

And it is very successful in
keeping me so preoccupied I forget to ask for help.

All this sounds very silly as I
write this. It sounds like the comedian Flip Wilson, whose famous line was:
“The devil made me do it.” Regardless, it has been very, very difficult for me
lately to deal with my busy-body mind. Nevertheless, my “higher” mind has to
learn to exercise discipline over my egoic mind and ask for help. That is my
challenge. That is the lesson hiding in everyone I meet – be they nice,
friendly, arrogant, angry, or bigoted. However, that is tough for me today. I
am a work in progress.

Although these messages are
mostly for me, thanks for listening. As always – feel free to forward this
message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual
journey.

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Donald L. O'Dell holds a Master of Divinity from
Princeton Theological Seminary and an
undergraduate degree in history from North Texas.
As an ordained United Presbyterian minister, he
served as a street gang minister in Trenton, NJ. In
addition he had two separate pastorates in
Oklahoma, where he also served as Chaplain in a
county hospital.
He continued to serve smaller congregations after
he joined the private sector in business.
Semi-retired, he resides in Florida where he
continues a proposal consulting business.
He also remains an active participant in a New
Thought congregation.